[FM Discuss] a few reflections

[David Farning]

On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 5:04 AM, adam hyde <adam at flossmanuals.net> wrote:
> hi,
>
> The Command Line Intro book is turning out to be another interesting
> book sprint experience. Essentially all contributions are remote.
>
> This has meant that there are people adding material in shifts. Like
> everything, the implications are actually quite obvious but I didn't
> realise them until actually experiencing this first hand.
>
> So, what is kind of interesting is that new writers log in while the
> real space sprinters are asleep. I woke up this morning to find a few
> chapters done which were empty when I went to sleep, eg:
> http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/CommandLineIntro/MultipleFiles
>
> This is a pretty good feeling!
>
> To assist the process I was wondering what we can do. One thing that
> could help is to have a very simple announcement box per manual. It
> might contain a few notices like :
> * chapters requiring priority attention include all those in the
> 'advanced' section
> * can someone write the 'introduction to scripting' chapter
>
> etc
>
> This would give a few hints to those logging in as to what to do when
> others are asleep.
>
> Also, I think a link to the irc channel log for that day would be very
> helpful, then contributors can look back and see what has been
> discussed.
>
> The www irc chat embedded in the WRITE section has been unbelievably
> useful during this sprint....quite amazing
>
> anyways...thats just a few thoughts. any other ideas of how we could
> assist remote contributors are welcome

Just want to agree that having contributors across several time zones
is great for moral.

There is nothing like waking up in the morning fearing the length
one's TODO list only to be _relived_ at how much got done while you
were sleeping.

In Amsterdam there was talk about have sprints in multiple locations
to take advantage of time zones.  I am concerned that holding sprints
in multiple locations will add a great deal of administrative
overhead.

Leveraging remote contributors seems like a good compromise.  When in
doubt 'KISS':)

david

> adam
>
>
>
>
> --
> Adam Hyde
> Founder FLOSS Manuals
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> Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
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